My Rainbow Dreams

Hippies as a social category, we think, have a few unfair, and indeed paradoxical, reputations. While they are widely derided as dirty or otherwise lacking in hygiene, the best (if not necessarily the cheapest) soaps always seem to be made be hippy-sounding concerns. We're talking about those bars you can find in certain shops made from organic goats milk/olives/coconut butter et cetera with quaint packaging, but smell/lather/feel the bestest. Similarly, despite their rep for being simplistic, earthy, and possibly naive types, hippies and hippy cafes, in general, make better, more sophisticated food than the fast food chains and most cafes that feed the mainstream.

With its certain hippy resonances, recently we've discovered and enjoyed My Rainbow Dreams, a cafe in the pedestrianised part of the Dickson shops. Apparently run by some local group within the Sri Chinmoy movement, it offers delicious and cheapish vegetarian food for lunch for the remarkably socially diverse mix of people who can found wandering around Dickson around midday on a weekday. On the wall is a picture of Sri in a down jacket, smiling and gazing blissfully into the distance, among cherry blossoms. Behind the counter are twins, and another woman who seems to have trouble multitasking, all in saris. Everything is pretty good, though the changing selection of quiches are favourites, along with the savoury pies. Possibly not worth a special trip, but a certainly a good place to go for a quick lunch if you're nearby.